Cotton candy at the Confucian Temple

We leave on our vacation this afternoon. I'm really looking forward to visiting new parts of China. We've hardly even left this province since we've moved here, except for our one trip to Beijing. It's time to see new things, go new places!

This morning I spoke with my parents. I don't speak to them nearly as often as I'd like to, thanks to the time difference between Nanjing and Alabama. Zack spoke with them to and they asked him if he was excited about taking this trip. He said "Not really, we go on trips all the time." I suppose traveling is traveling is traveling. And, for an 8 year old kid, it's hard to comprehend the difference between a 3 hour train ride to Shanghai and a 3 hour plane ride to the other side of the country. I hope the kids will have fun. I tried to pack light, but we are going to be gone for 10 days and it's hard to pack light for that amount of time.

We took Josie to the vet yesterday for more puppy shots. Afterwards we went to a Korean restaurant for lunch and they kindly let us bring Josie inside. We ended up taking her all around town and no one stopped us from bringing her inside anywhere we went. She was in a duffle bag with just her head peeking out. She was very well behaved but I think she was also quite overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of the city. It's nice and quiet out here at our country home.

One more thing: my kitchen sink has been leaking ever since we moved in here. I've had the guys out many times to fix it, but they just keep doing quick fixes and not resolving the true problem at hand. The real problem is that the pipe under my sink is a cheap, flimsy, plastic pipe. It's bendable and the plastic is so thin that I can see the water flowing through it. A couple nights ago my sink wouldn't drain so I opened up the cabinet and took a look at the pipe. I could see that it was full of water, so I proceeded to bend up the pipe to help it empty. As soon as my fingers brushed the pipe, the whole thing fell apart, dumping gross water all over my kitchen floor.Chris called Li Weiping and asked him to get it fixed. The pipe fits back onto the sink, but it can fall off again with just a light tug. Li Wieping explained that this was simply and design flaw (his favorite excuse) and nothing to be done for it. Chris told him, yes, something can be done and please get it done.

Apparently the repair man came yesterday while I was in class. I noticed today that the flexible pipe has been tied to the sink pipe with yellow string. Ok, I guess that works too...